A British fire officer and his partner are to marry on Valentine's Day at the top of the Empire State Building "to be closer" to his late 13-year-old son.

Rob Paterson, 47, and Rosie Franklin, 41, from Oxford, are one of three UK couples set to tie the knot at the iconic New York location on Wednesday.

Mr Paterson's son was killed in a car crash in August 2005.

The couple said they chose the venue because they wanted to be "closer to heaven" and Mr Paterson's late son.

After Ms Franklin supported him through his grief they got engaged at the tower four months later.

Receptionist Rebekah Robbins, 34, and electrical engineer David Stanley, from Sheffield, who are also saying their vows at the Empire State Building, met online while she was undergoing breast cancer treatment last January.

She reportedly joked that she would like to get married at the Empire State Building when Mr Stanley proposed to her, because "after all that she had been through" she now felt like she was "on top of the world".

Meanwhile, Cambridgeshire couple Clayton Hudson, 32, and IT manager Beverley Dawn Shaw, who have already visited New York four times, said they felt a "real affinity" for the city.

The three British couples are among 14 who won a competition to get married at the Empire State Building on the romantic date.